Beast Wars: Pathways
by Livin In Sin
Summary: A different path that the Beast Wars might have taken, new characters and new threats, only one question, can the Maximals survive? Rated T for later chapters and to be safe.
1. King Of The Jungle

_The following takes place after the Season 3 Episode **Proving Grounds**._

**Beast Wars**

**Pathways**

**King Of The Jungle**

The Ark was quiet. Magma bubbled below as it always did, the price of bedding down in an active volcano, but more often than not ones sound wave receptors would adapt to filter it out, as if it were just static. Rattrap leaned back in his control chair starring smugly at an empty scanning grid, "Well, that's jus' Prime." He quipped to himself, chuckling feverishly for a few seconds before returning to rest. "A bot could just fall into to stasis lock wit' the lack a action around here lately."

Truth be told Megatron hadn't stirred from his base in almost a stellar cycle, scouts had been racing here there and everywhere but for the spark of him Rattrap couldn't figure out why, which was exactly why the cat kid, Cheetor was out on a wide patrol. Rattrap's comm link buzzed and he answered promptly, "Maximal base, bed, oil bath and a warm Recovery chamber all under one roof, how can I help?"

"Funny guy." the cat bot answered, "I got nothing from grid alpha to my current position, you got anything on the base scanners?" He asked.

Rattrap sighed, for all the good Cheetor did he couldn't just let some nice cosy R&R slide by, "All quiet on all fronts." Rattrap summarised, "So how 'bout you get your rear in gear, get back here, so I can get back to the oil bath o' my dreams?"

"Negative." Cheetor responded, "I'm gonna sweep a few more grids and then you can get back to your oil bath, ya overgrown house mouse." Rattrap's face tightened into a sneer.

"We are what we are," The rodent transmetal mused, "An' I'm slaggin' tired, get!?" With that he cut the comm conversation short. It didn't do well for a single Maximal to be out alone for so long, just because a viper hadn't struck, didn't mean it wasn't coiled.

* * *

Across the prehistoric Earth's rugged landscape hurtled a single lithe figure, met fluid and bio-technical tissues tensing and relaxing in a set computerised sequence, optimising land speed. Cheetor's transmetal two form had allowed him even greater prowess in the field of searching and scouting, he was in effect a transmetal missile, but then again he was a formidable adversary. No doubt he was the Maximal's greatest weapon with the possible exception of Optimus Primal. "That overgrown door mouse," the cat groaned to himself, "I oughta pop 'im one soon as I get back to base."

Far above the atmosphere rippled, air roared around a falling projectile, the metal it was composed of glowed white hot from the strain of busting through Earth's stratosphere. Below, Cheetor craned his neck upward and growled, "Maximise!" He yelled, shifting instantaneously into his robot form. "Slag! That's gotta be a stasis pod, but how? They were all knocked down in the trans-warp explosion." Cheetor recalled the event well, Rhinox's scans had confirmed that all the Maximal protoforms had dropped out of orbit, it was possible that it had come from Cybertron, but no stasis pod could've drifted that far on its own.

"Cheetor to base." The cat said hurriedly as he activated his comm link, "There's somethin' comin' outta the sky! Looks like a stasis pod. Get Optimus out here quickly." He heard the somewhat reluctant rodent sigh over the connection.

"You crossed ya wires kitty cat? Dunno if you remember but Bolt was the last protoform to come droppin' outta the skies and there ain't no more Maxie pods up there." Rattrap groaned, "I think you need to log some sessions in the R-Chamber 'fore you go wandering off on some wild pod chase."

"Just do it!" Cheetor responded bitterly before shooting off toward the horizon.

* * *

Rattrap sighed yet again, rolling his chair back to the scanners, still nothing, "Looks like the kitty kiddy has some fused circuits or somethin'." He jeered, spinning one finger by the side of his head. Behind him he heard the sound of shifting metal and quickly span around. Silverbolt. "Gee, were your ears burnin' Bolt?" Rattrap asked.

"To what you're referring I have no idea, I just awoke and thought I could make myself useful." The fuzor replied, Rattrap cocked his head a little, he'd always found Bolt's altruistic and heroic nature somewhat of a puzzle, usually he put it down to circuit stress owing to the manner in which Bolt had arrived on Earth, but sometimes he sounded almost like an Autobot.

"Yeah well I guess you can bird-dog. Puss in boots says he saw a stasis pod droppin' down from the heavens an' I think he's gone loco, but he asked for back up and with the boss monkey tryin' to bring Depth Charge in its no go on that front, so you want to--?" To Rattrap's surprise Silverbolt was already heading for the exit. "Eh, yeah, sic 'em boy."

The stasis pod arched toward the planet below, where Cheetor dashed to intercept it. Within the pod internal systems came online, a mechanical voice buzzed within the pod's main chamber. "Anomaly traversed, unit Omicron Four detected below. **WARNING**: Unit Protoform X, detected, recommend caution." The pod dropped from the sky, plunging into the jungle below. The Maximal following halted at the jungle boarder, looked behind him, seeing figures on the horizon he darted into the mess of foliage.

Different shades of green zipped by as Cheetor reverted back into Beast Mode, his sensors fixed firmly on the pod's Maximal signature. Those two back there were most likely Waspinator and Inferno, "Can't let them get there first." Cheetor panted, re-establishing his lock on the pod he triggered the rocket fixed on his back.

* * *

"Oh, Waspinator sees cat bot, Waspinator slag cat bot."

Inferno hovered up at Waspinator's side, knocking down his weapon and causing the other Predacon to miss Cheetor by a mile. "Foolish drone." Inferno thundered, "I will divert the Maximal, you secure the pod for the royalty. Do not act until I get there, I cannot abide your bumbling any longer, go!" The ant based Pred flew off in pursuit of the lone Maximal.

"Waspinator never get to have any fun." The wasp moaned, "Waspinator slag kitty bot alone." Drawing his gun again the Predacon sighted along the barrel over Inferno's shoulder, "Waspinator get big reward."

"Alternatively." A bold voice bellowed from behind him, "You can get put in stasis lock and wake up in an R-Chamber. Silverbolt, Maximise!" The fuzor flashed into view, aiming both wing mounted missiles toward the insectoid transformer, both fired off, swiftly converging on their target and blowing it out of the sky. Some way ahead, Inferno heard the explosion and turned back to see Waspinator's flaming form crashing into Terra firma.

"Useless drone." The ant yelled, drawing his own side arm he fired a barrage of missiles toward Silverbolt, the fuzor ducked and weaved against the setting sun, his shining steel plating glistening in the fading light. But no flyer is invincible as is common knowledge and soon Silverbolt's prone form had joined that of his enemy upon the ground. Circuitry sparked in his torso, exposed by the explosion which had felled him, "Damage extensive." A voice buzzed inside his head, "Stasis lock imminent."

"Negative." Bolt replied, struggling to rise to his feet, "Override command. I must help my comrade." Spreading his wings he found that they would not carry him, so reverting to beast mode to commence the few automatic repairs that he could he limped on toward the waiting jungle.

* * *

Deep within the green mass, the second generation transmetal thundered onward, root and branch providing no obstacle until at last he came to a clearing, which had, it seemed, been only then blown out of the canopy and sure enough there at its epicentre... was an empty stasis pod. "What?" the cat panted, "Operational, but how? Optimus?" His eyes cast around wildly for any sign of a friendly face, not a thing stirred within the jungle, even the countless insects beneath his feet seemed to have fallen silent. And then all of a sudden the world flashed white and he was in the air, transforming into his robot mode he swiftly drew his weapon and upon landing swept the barrel about madly, praying and hoping for a target.

But there was nothing. But then, from the dense trees he heard a noise, a faint hum, his eyes locked to where it had come from as something appeared, as if materializing from out of the ether. Green and silver plating formed a majority of its body, a lizard like head formed its chest plate, red eyes glinting in the now almost faded light. In its right hand it held a coiled whip which appeared almost tongue like but which ran with what appeared to be an Energon current and on its other forearm there was a single smoking barrel.

"Well that's just great." Cheetor said to himself. The creature lunged forward, lashing at the young Maximal with its whip, Cheetor leapt over the weapon and shifted into beast mode, crashing on top of the other bot. "Who are you?" He demanded.

"I might ask you." The creature responded, its voice was masculine, somewhat gritty, but with a haunting quality, as if when it spoke it echoed all around, regardless of surroundings. "You're no transformer I've met, you're with X aren't you?"

"X?" Cheetor questioned, somewhat stunned and dumbstruck, "Protoform X? You mean Rampage?" The crab soldier had become infamous among the Maximal ranks, for all their combined power only Depth Charge truly had the ferocity to take Rampage on toe to toe. Even then the Maximals had gained few victories over the psychotic protoform.

"You do know him then." The stranger gasped, flipping Cheetor onto his back and pinning his front paws down, "Where is he? How many more of you are there here?"

Cheetor gasped as he was forcibly pinned, seeing no other option he decided he'd better buy some time 'til his reinforcements turned up. "If you mean Transformers then there are plenty, but there are seven of us Maximals. What's it to you?" The stranger's eyes widened.

"You're a Maximal? Then I did make it, this is Earth." Standing back up the stranger held out a hand which Cheetor gladly took to pull him to his feet, he observed they were about the same height, although Cheetor was of a wider build in robot mode, perhaps an advantage should things turn ugly again. "Sorry pussy cat, thought you were a Pred, but it looks like my scanners aren't what they used to be." As if on cue a voice buzzed out from his on board computer, "Maximal energy signal detected, subject has sustained critical damage, Predacon signature detected nearby."

"Looks like we'll have to pick this up later." Cheetor observed, "If my buds in trouble I gotta go." The stranger nodded and shifted into beast mode. A chameleon, that explained the weird invisibility at least. This form seemed half way between a basic beast mode and a transmetal, what appeared to be an armoured cable formed the creatures spine and ran down each of the four limbs, the tail's tip had a blade in place and the tongue within the beast's mouth buzzed with Energon, it also bore a small serrated horn on its nose which appeared to be more for decoration than attack.

"Let's go get your pal, puss." Cheetor rolled his eyes and allowed the other Maximal to hop on his back, he was surprisingly light, more so than what Cheetor had expected. Thinking it unimportant he galloped onward, taking the stranger with him, he didn't quite trust him yet, but if there was a Maximal in danger then he didn't have much of a choice. They broke swiftly from the tree line and the chameleon craned his neck down to whisper into Cheetor's ear, "I'm gonna get off here, see if whatever jumped your buddy's still around." The small weight was lifted from Cheetor's shoulders as the bot leapt off, casting his eyes forward the young Maximal saw a prone silver figure close by.

"Bolt! Aw man!" Pushing himself, Cheetor closed the gap in a few short moments, Bolt had lost conciousness, there was extensive damage but the fuzor wasn't quite stasis locked. "Who did this to you Bolt buddy?" Cheetor questioned, not expecting an answer, however the ground flashed beside him and he was again flung skyward, landing roughly on his back, he rolled his eyes and looked up only to find Inferno's gun trained on him, he reached for his own weapon but the Predacon merely tightened the grip on his own and wagged hi finger at Cheetor.

The cat bot sighed, but suddenly a glowing coil wrapped around the ant's wrist, pulling the cross-hairs away from the young Maximal. "Oo ont ant oo oo at." A voice sounded from nearby, standing not far away was the strange chameleon in plain view, not understanding what he had said Inferno cocked his head, the lizard bot sighed, "I aid.. uh, Aximize!" The tongue disconnected and the transformer swiftly shifted into his robot form, catching the Energon whip in his palm, "I said, you don't want to do that." Inferno tried to wretch his arm free, but the other Maximal simply detached his weapon and blew Inferno to the ground with his wrist blaster. "I warned you bug face!"

Shifting back to beast mode, Inferno kicked Waspinator with one of his legs, waking him and plunged his head down, digging his way out of the situation, the wasp quickly followed. "Scrap metal." The chameleon remarked.

"That was off the hook!" Cheetor exclaimed, "Make sure you slag 'im next time for me though. Uh, can you help me get Bolt here back to our base?"

"It'd be my pleasure." The stranger answered. Cheetor transformed and hoisted Bolt's prone figure between the two of them, looking across at the newcomer he realised something.

"Hey, I don't even know you're name."

As the trio travelled off into the sunset the chameleon starred off into the distance, watching the Sol star dip below the horizon he looked back and said, "Chamelecon."


	2. Gone Fishing

**Disclaimer (Cause I didn't put it in chapter one.)  
**_I own neither Transformers nor its Beast Wars branch and make no claim to the contrary, however the character of Chamelecon is my property, reproduction of this character is fine as long as I am consulted first. _

_  
As if that's going to happen..._

**Beast Wars**

**Pathways**

**Gone Fishing**

The door to the R-Chamber hissed shut and Rattrap quickly checked to make sure Silverbolt was still offline, satisfied that he wouldn't awake and muck up the repair sequence he turned back toward Cheetor and the new guy. "Eh, so how'd you get here then, green skin?" He asked, leveling his wary eye at the stranger, "You weren't on the Axalon and couldn't a been on the Darkside, without bein' in itty bitty pieces."

Chamelecon returned the accusatory stare, "Cybertron sent me, the High Council to be more specific." He paused for a few seconds, letting the expressions of confusion spread out over Rattrap and Cheetor's faces, "A Maximal unit strayed into a forbidden zone while in pursuit of a dangerous protoform, I was told to bring them both back, in a functional state if I could."

Rattrap cocked his head, not believing a blind word which came out of the lizard bot's mouth. "Yeah, an' I guess you just hot wired a pod and went on ya merry little way, eh? You couldn't of fired a pod through all the space 'tween Cybertron and Earth." Unconsciously his hand brushed against the butt of his weapon, not being one to trust a guy that skulked around in the dark, as hypocritical as the idea was.

"You're right, I didn't." The Maximal answered, an expression of satisfaction spread across Rattrap's mug, which was shattered as the stranger continued, "The council couldn't give me a ship and tell me to fly a forbidden path, so under the guise of a prisoner I was put on a transport ship in a stasis pod with some.. special programming, the ship jettisoned me as it reached the edge of the system and I used the gravity of the planets between there and Earth to slingshot myself here." He sighed, "But then this spacial temporal anomaly pulled me in and trashed the pod along with its recovery beacon, which would have sent me a drone ship to bring my two happy campers back. Thought my mission was slag until the pod registered both X and the other fugitive. Effectively I'm stuck on this rock until they send someone to haul my carcass in and then the Council will probably chew my brass out but good... if they don't shred me to shrapnel that is."

"Well, least you found Rampage, uh, X." Cheetor commented, placing an arm on the newcomer's shoulder, "Now can you tell me where I can get one of those Energon whips... huh, buddy?" Chamelecon smirked and drew the weapon in question, at the touch of a switch it buzzed with the hazy blue energy.

"High Council issued me with it." Chamelecon explained, "Must have bonded with my beast mode profile while I was coming out of stasis lock. Lucky me, eh?" Rattrap cocked his head again, that thing was unlike anything he'd seen previous and he wondered how it must function, leaning in to get a closer look he was halted by Chamelecon, "Wouldn't do that if I were you, the results could be, uh, unpleasant. As in, highly combustible unpleasant, experimental design and all."

"So you're here to pull the fish outta water huh? Pfft, good luck" Rattrap remarked, "Ol' salmon puss and his crab cake buddy haven't been seen in a fair few solar cycles. The boss is out lookin' for true blue but he should be back later on." As if by intent, none other should burst through the doors at that moment but Optimus Primal, transformed by his encounter with the Spark of the Maximal's ancient ancestor Optimus Prime, the famed Autobot, he even had started to look like the bot in question. To say the least Chamelecon was dumbstruck.

"No sign of Depth Charge or any Predacons, but I'll recharge and get under way again in--" It was at this point we he noticed the new face and promptly bent forward to take a closer look. "A couple of cycles." He finished, "Care to fill me in Rattrap?" He asked turning toward the sub-commander.

"Your guess is as good as mine boss monkey." Rattrap summarised, "Guy says the Council sent him, lookin' for our blue buddy, but he's as stranded as we are now that some spacial anomaly whatsit trashed his stasis pod." He gestured toward Cheetor casually, "The kitty cat was out there and I sent Silverbolt to back 'em up, these two came back in one piece. As for Bolt, well, he's in the Chamber pullin' himself back together."

Optimus turned back and looked down toward Chamelecon, "Thanks for the assist, sorry I couldn't have brought Depth Charge back for you." Chamelecon simply shrugged, "But there's some hope left that we can reach him before he reaches Rampage." Again Chamelecon shrugged.

"With my luck they'll slag each other." He sighed, "Don't you have a tech head around here who can calibrate a scanner to his Spark?"

"That would be Rattrap." Optimus began.

"If he'd get off his tail for a change." Cheetor finished for him.

The door to the Recovery Chamber hissed and lifted upward, revealing the polished and fully repaired form of Silverbolt. "See, Fido? Good as new." To emphasise his fine work in debugging the bases systems after the recent move from the Axalon Rattrap patted on the console next to him. "Just a little spit an' polish is all."

A wave of sighs ran through the assembled Maximals. Rattrap could be an insufferable blow hard sometimes, well, most of the time really. "Shall we leave you two alone?" Cheetor asked, his voice thick with sarcasm.

* * *

_Two Solar Cycles later..._

"Amazing." Rhinox murmured starring at the instruments before him, Chamelecon lay in front of him on a surgical slab, an x-ray probe hovering above him taking shots of his internal workings. "Your superstructures only been forty percent tranmetalised. The rest of your systems function as normal."

"Well that means what to me, doc." Chamelecon commented, "You said Depth Charge was fully transformed when he came through, so, why not me?"

Rhinox glared at the screens before him as his subject got up and stood beside him, making little sense of the readings which Rhinox had gathered, "I'm not exactly sure, I have a theory but I'd have to examine all the variables before I make a concrete hypothesis, I'd have to have a look at the stasis pod and I'd need the coordinates of the spacial anomaly as well. Which should be stored on the pods internal memory."

"You'll have to send someone else." The new Maximal cut in, "I still have to find Depth Charge and then we can get to work on a way to get off of this rock, seriously how do you put up with this place, it's so different from Cybertron."

"Why do you think I don't go on missions any more? This place is too different from when we landed, I feel almost lost, most of all, all the flowers are all different."

"I though you were playing watchdog for the Ark, but good point." Both bots comm links came on line at once, crackled with static for a moment, which to a Transformer is very much like nails on a chalk board, then the signal began to stabilise.

"Depth Charge to Maximal base." Both Maximals exchanged a look of relief, on Rhinox's part because he had genuinely worried about his friend and on Chamelecon's because this meant he might still be able to acquire his target in one piece. "Repeat, Depth Charge here, to anyone, I'm in coastal grid Z-Epsilon, Rampage is here and you have to.. argh!"

"Sounds like my friend's bitten off more than he could chew." Chamelecon observed. Rhinox nodded.

"We better send help, you go get Optimus and--" Rhinox was cut off as the new team member made a b-line for the front gate.

"Sorry Rhinox. I'm out fishin'." As the door slammed behind him he could almost hear Rhinox sigh heavily. He felt like a Grade-A slag heap for bailing on his new friends, but Depth Charge was too important.

* * *

_A few cycles later, Grid Z-Epsilon_

Depth Charge rounded the last corner, bolts of energy and superheated plasma along with a missile or two pounded into the wall, just missing him, but that was about as far as he could go, there was a dead end round this corner and if he flew out they'd simply shoot him down. From around the corner he heard Megatron's pompous voice spouting orders as usual. "Blow him out of there, bring that cliff face down around him!"

The barrage resumed quickly, dust and small rocks began to pelt down as thick as rain on the Maximal. Finding a small crevice, just big enough to shield him from the impending collapse, he pressed his back against its rear wall and crouched low, his weapon at the ready should they decide to come flush him out. Rocks creaked and shifted far above, producing ear shattering crashes, he at least counted himself lucky that he didn't have organic ear drums.

"Bring me that alien unit, or bring me his head!" Megatron bellowed, Depth Charge heard a bestial growl, no doubt the sound of Dinobot moving closer, then all at once, the noise stopped.

"What the pit?" Depth Charge mumbled, stepping out of the crevice, "Are they gone? Must be a trap." Trap or not, if he was going out, he might as well bite the bait, uttering a colossal cry, he rounded the corner, not even bothering to take aim before firing off his first shot, which connected solidly, with nothing but rock. Dinobot lay not far from him, apparently in stasis lock, as did Rampage and Megatron. "What the pit?" Depth Charge repeated.

"That's the element of surprise in action." A voice said from nearby, Depth Charge cast his eyes upward to see a transformer whom he half recognised, apparently stuck to the wall by his feet. In one move the bot had leaped down to come face to face with him, well almost seeing as how Depth Charge was taller, "Or had you forgotten how valuable that is?"

"What're you doing here?" Depth Charge asked menacingly, his face contorting in to what passed for a sneer, "Sure as slag not sightseeing, I can tell that much. You hunting bear or what?"

"Nah." Chamelecon said as he crossed in his arms, "Rock's and dust aren't easy on the optics, just gimmie an urban paradise over this dust ball any day." He looked up at Depth Charge and gave a somewhat nervous grin, "So, no hard feelings about--?" He was cut off as Depth Charge slammed his fist in Chamelecon's face, sending him straight to the floor.

"No hard feelings." Depth Charge joked, he then pulled the other bot to his feet only to knock him back down again. "And that's for bailing on me, scrapheap."

* * *

_A few cycles and about seven right hooks later..._

"So I bumped Megs and the two stooges in stasis lock and got our friend out of there, despite him wanting to finish his job on X and earning myself a couple of cheap shots." Chamelecon summarised to Optimus, Depth Charge simply nodded whenever the bigger bot looked toward him. "So I guess grape face will be pretty riled up about now, probably taking it out on some of those poor old subordinates, anyway, whatever he was blabbering about it's not important now."

Depth Charge knew exactly what Megatron was referring to, but stayed perfectly silent, he assumed that he had destroyed the transmetal driver in one of the base's lava pits, of course he was mistaken, but he had absolutely no idea that Blackarachnia had snagged the device before it hit the pit. Optimus looked them both over and sighed, "Well at least you both got back in one piece. Depth Charge, I'll debrief you later, I'm sure you've learned something of value, you've been gone long enough." At this Depth Charge shrugged and walked off, prompting another sigh from Optimus. "And Chamelecon, if you're satisfied that Depth Charge is safe and you're ready I'd like you to start active duty with us."

Chamelecon gave an almost comical salute, before bellowing, "Yes sir!" Relaxing he looked around, "Where do you want me?"


End file.
